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The Catholic view of the blessed virgin
To the Editor:
Long overdue, this is in part a response to an Aug. 26-27 article in The Sentinel about the pope's trip to Mongolia. It contained a couple of interesting but inaccurate paragraphs on church history and doctrine.
Written by a news platform called The Conversation, the unnamed writer did a pretty good treatment of an ancient 4th-5th century heresy called Nestorianism. The article said that "Nestorians believed that Christ had two natures - one human and one divine."
This is actually standard Christian belief of Catholics, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox, the two natures of Christ. Where Nestorians went wrong was believing that there were two persons in Christ, a divine person and a human person, as opposed to the standard belief that Christ was one person, a divine person, who took on a human nature and a human body from His mother, Mary. The Nestorian belief was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D.
Like many non-Catholic Christians today, Nestorians also did not believe in calling Mary "Mother of God," a title defended and upheld by the Council and continued by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox today. This does not make Mary a goddess, she was purely human, but is simply a recognition that she gave birth to a divine person, God Himself, as Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, with a human nature and a real body and thus the title is proper. Thus the original article was inaccurate in saying "Mary is believed to be divine..." by Roman Catholics. We don't believe that. In a wonderful, marvelous paradox, she was created by God and then gave birth to God in our world. She was the channel or conduit through which Jesus, human and divine, came from Heaven to earth.
I am writing this on Dec. 8 on the major feast of the Immaculate Conception (IC) of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was declared the patronal feast of the United States in 1846 by our nation's Catholic bishops. This does not refer, as many mistakenly think, to the virginal conception of our Lord, another truth embraced by all Christians, i.e., that our Lord was conceived in Mary's womb, miraculously, without benefit of man, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
No, the IC refers to the somewhat shocking truth that Mary, while conceived in the normal way by her parents (Saints Joachim and Anna), was conceived without the stain of original sin from Adam and Eve (which we all inherit, except for Jesus Himself), in order to be a fitting vessel in which to hold the son of God in her womb. And she never committed an actual sin either.
While this truth is not shared by Protestants nor even by Eastern Orthodox (who nevertheless revere and venerate Mary greatly) it can make sense from a "bookends" perspective, so common in the Bible. In other words, just as grace was lost in a Garden (of Eden) and gained in a garden (of Gethsemane); just as the wood of a tree (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) caused our downfall and the wood of a tree (the cross) brought our Redemption, just as Eve's no to God caused our downfall, so too Mary's yes to the angel prompted our Redemption, then just as the first Eve was sinless (before the Fall), so to the second Eve (a title of Mary) must be sinless for full closure and resolution.
And yet she still calls her son her Savior. She would still fall under Romans 3:23-24, which says "All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God. They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption of Christ Jesus." In other words, were it not for God's special intervention, flowing from His Son's death and resurrection, she would have fallen into sin.
One medieval writer put it this way: We can be saved from the pit one of two ways: 1) By falling into the pit and being pulled out and you would say to that rescuer, "You saved me. Thank you." That's how we were all saved. 2) You can be saved from the pit by someone stopping you and warning you about the pit ahead. You would say the same thing. That's how Mary was uniquely saved, preventatively. And this flows from the death and resurrection of Christ. And keep in mind, that while you and I were not conceived immaculately, if we are saved we will be rendered immaculate, i.e., sinless in Heaven, then sharing Mary's status.
Dec. 12 is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, marking Mary's 1531 appearance in Mexico to the peasant Juan Diego, speaking to him in the indigenous Nuatal language, prompting many conversions to the faith. More for our purposes here, is Mary's 1858 appearance to a 12-year-old French girl who reported to the local parish priest the mysterious woman's words to her. Although the term had been publicly reaffirmed as true and to be believed four years earlier by Pope Pius IX, the priest was still amazed that this illiterate peasant would be familiar with the concept. What were the words from the lady that surprised the pastor? When asked by St. Bernadette to identify herself, the lady replied, "I am the Immaculate Conception."
Rev. William M. Weary, pastor
Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, Lewistown
St. Jude Thaddeus Church, Mifflintown